Daschuk, J. (2013). Clearing the plains: Disease, the
politics of starvation and the loss of aboriginal life. Regina: University of
Regina Press.
Main Argument
In the conclusion to Clearing the Plains, Daschuk (2013)
summarizes the thesis of his book: present-day health inequalities between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians are rooted in exploitative (and
fundamentally racist) economic and political decisions made by settlers and the
Canadian state in the early days of colonization.
Supporting Points
Daschuk writes from the understanding
that “economic and environmental changes are inseparable” (2013, p. xi), and
that “the rise of a capitalist world-economy and the rise of a capitalist
world-ecology were two moments of the same world historical process” (Moore as
cited in Daschuk, 2013, p. xi). Daschuk (2013) also asserts that this clash of
peoples and ecologies was/is fundamentally rooted in the racist ideology of the
Canadian state, and it is the “material conditions” (p. x) of this clash that
are the foci of his book.
Daschuk (2013) summarizes this history
of health inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada
as occurring in two phases: the acute infectious diseases phase prior to the fur trade, and the health
disparities that accompanied the signing of treaties between First Nations and
the Canadian state. The first phase, which saw almost every First Nations
community being affected by small pox to varying degrees, was a result of
horizontal trade between the Americas and the relocation of Indigenous groups
as a result of the early fur trade (pp. 181-183).
The second phase accompanied the
signing of treaties in the West, which entrenched the exploitative relationship
between the Canadian state and Indigenous populations through the land reserve
system and increased dependency of Indigenous peoples on the State, after the
decline of the bison and resulting famine (Daschuk, 2013, pp. 183-184). During
1878 and the early 1890s, tuberculosis, influenza, and various other epidemics
decimated on-reserve Indigenous populations and paved the way for food-based
population control on the part of the Canadian government (Daschuk, 2013, pp.
184-185).
Daschuk (2013) argues that these two
phases entrenched racist ideology that has allowed for historical and current
health inequalities in Indigenous Canadians to be ‘acceptable’ by the Canadian
public, even though these inequalities are “the direct result of economic and
cultural suppression (p. 186). He gives examples of contemporary health
concerns, such as limited access to clean drinking water on reserves, and the
increasing presence of diseases and suicide in Indigenous communities as the
direct results from the policies created in these earlier phases of the
Canadian state (pp. 185-186).
Assessment / Critique
Reading sections of this book affirmed
the parts of history that were hinted at in the early social studies courses of
my elementary school in rural Saskatchewan. We learned about high rates of
disease on reserves, about the treaties, and about the transition from a
nomadic lifestyle to an agriculturally-based one of Indigenous communities on
the prairies, in particular the Plains Cree. Some of the more damming details
of these stories were also relayed to us – in particular the use of smallpox
infected blankets and the restriction of food supplies in an effort to
exterminate Indigenous populations in the face of resistance to the Canadian state
through the Riel Rebellion. What this book reinforced for me, however, was the
severity of the health-related outcomes through the process of the
dispossession of people from land and the expansion of trade into contemporary
Canada. The strength of these arguments comes from Daschuk’s extensive research
and historical perspective, and in his ability to reliably link present-day
health outcomes with historical and ongoing processes of colonization.
It is hard to critique a book that is
so masterfully put together. The only thing I could see making it more
well-rounded would be more contemporary statistics about the current state of
life on reserves in Canada or health outcomes for urban Indigenous peoples.
Daschuk does mention many of these, but for the most part, the book still
struck me as a ‘history book’ more than one that was making an argument for the
purposes of social justice. The questions I am left with are grounded in my
curiosity about how this history was suppressed for so long. What were the
active forces contributing to the silencing of this awful colonial history?
And, more importantly, I wonder: What would Daschuk argue should be done about
the historical inequalities that he has so thoughtfully outlined?
I asked a similar question when reading the Thomas King (2012) interview wondering what strategies (other than residential schooling practices) were used to influence people in slowly forgetting this history. King offers one solution to this silencing that I appreciated by promoting multiple voices in telling about their real experiences and personal accounts of struggles they are facing now.
ReplyDeleteAlong the same lines, I also wondered how governments can get around treaties, how are their attempts, and reasons for it, working? I am more interested in the psychological workings behind this as well.
I agree, Daschuk's account of the impact of disease brought by White settlers, and how this contributed to the long term decline of First Nations communities, is a relatively untold chapter in the history, and it is a particularly strong part of the article. Daschuk's work is slowly making its way onto reading lists, but too often is still viewed as an alternative history when it is should be included as one of the essential critiques of the mainstream history of Western expansion, challenging the one of the grand narratives of Canada's development.
ReplyDeleteConrad